Cultural Marxism in the manosphere

The thing that makes cultural Marxism laughably ridiculous is that it is basically a big fat ad hominem. Cultural Marxism consists of a bunch of malcontents doing everything possible to avoid discussing objective truth. Rather than focusing on what is objectively true, cultural Marxists propose that the world is all about power relations. Discussion of power relations replaces inquiry into what is true, and victim status replaces truth. This creates an ideological environment wherein what someone says is evaluated based on social class or group membership rather than against a standard of truth. As a result the kind of “discussion” cultural Marxism fosters is the ultimate in preaching to the choir and shouting down the heretics: propositions are not evaluated objectively, and what a member of an oppressor class says is rejected not because it has been evaluated against objective standards but because it comes from an oppressor: ad hominem writ large.

Just as there are postmodern tendencies in the manosphere there are also, I would suggest not coincidentally, tendencies which mirror cultural Marxism. I’ve griped before about the annoying tendency toward metanarrative: a quite laughable pseudo-analysis of the motives, psychology, and status of discussion participants takes place in parallel to, and sometimes to the exclusion of, actual content. Recent discussions on a vague-enough-to-be-postmodern idea that folks are labeling “the feminine imperative” seem to me to be little more than another ad hominem writ large, solipsistic over-the-Internet application of a pre-formed template to total strangers based on their outsider status, all the while ignoring the question of whether or not there is any truth, any validity, in the actual substantive content of what is contended. As in cultural Marxism more generally what matters is not what is objectively true but how well the latest faddish term fits the victim-oppressor narrative, and how good it makes the victims and their champions feel about themselves.

sunshinemary:Can you elaborate on what you are talking about in the last sentence?

Sure. Feminism and cultural Marxism are close cousins and perhaps even coextensive. My general message to the manosphere in this post is that if you want to defeat your enemy you don’t take up your rifle and join his army.

Of course my message will fall on disparate ears. Some spherians are players and like things this way. Some are nihilists and embrace the darkness. Some genuinely care about marriage and family. The first two aren’t likely to hear anything I have to say.

I agree with your “Treebeard” approach in your latest post, BTW, whatever sidetracks there may have been into factual disputes over how easy fornication/adultery is for women versus men, etc. I don’t really care (in a sense) that it is harder for men to fornicate or commit adultery than it is for women: in fact this is a blessing for them. Easy access to grave sin is a curse, not a blessing.

Thank you, Svar. Just between you and me, I cultivate my passive aggressiveness in order to distract men from noticing that I am attempting to take over the world with my, you know, feminine imperative.

Hmmm, Treebeard. An apt analogy perhaps. It is just that I realized this week that I was in danger of becoming a suck up to people with whom I don’t even agree; hence my last post and the predictable response it received from the sphere.

Ironically they would have a valid point about the “feminine imperative” if they just left it at discussing the sense of female entitlement rampant in our society which both the left and the right feed. Conservatives feed it buffet sized loads by demanding that men uphold chivalry on their end while not demanding that women abandon feminism on their end. The end result being women “getting it all” which is why many young men have subsconsciously or consciously no use for chivalry and consequently the conservatives who expect it of them (not the only reason they reject conservatism, but certainly a motivator).

“I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me. …And there are some things, of course, whose side I’m altogether not on. I am against them altogether.”- Treebeard

[…] I see that while I was writing this post Zippy was writing another post, Cultural Marxism in the manosphere. In this he continues his practice of neither quoting the actual arguments he is ostensibly […]

Sorry about that Zippy. I will admit that I am quite young(19) and therefore not always mature.

But I noticed the title of the article by Dalrock. He says that you were doing some psychoanalysis yourself….. I don’t see any of that. What’s really happening is that Dalrock is having a hissy fit because he got bested by someone intellectually superior to him(i.e. you).

Bested? He’s not even being specific about what he is supposedly refuting.

Zippy, what is Dalrock wrong about, and how? And why take Lydia’s side even though she refused to engage the arguments — and you were calling her out on it? We’re supposed to be above dismissing arguments simply because they’re “offensive.” Chastising Lydia for dodging the arguments, then suddenly taking her side and doing the same thing she’s doing is just hypocritical.

Sorry about that Zippy. I will admit that I am quite young(19) and therefore not always mature.

I was ~24 when I first started reading W4 (I’m now 29). Word of advice that I learned over time: Zippy is right more than he is wrong. That holds true at W4 as well when he got into it with others there.

** Though I still think you are too conservative in your handling of the banking crisis. I think we missed the last great opportunity for a national come to Jesus moment we’d have short of a federal gun confiscation initiative.

The way I see it, the behavior that Dalrock and others call the “feminine imperative” is the natural tension in a culture shifting from chivalric values to feminist values. Men are not really comfortable with demanding the rights that they should have under the liberal regime and are also not comfortable demanding that women behave according to chivalric norms. So this is how many good men just let women have it all. They tell their boys to behave like chivalric gentlemen (ex. how the girls were treated in the line) but not regard women in general as the weaker sex which chivalry also teaches.

I think women react poorly to this being attacked because they are consuming two mutually exclusive sets of cultural values and are suffering from simple doublethink, except this doublethink is constantly flip flopping between the value sets. If men had more forthrightly attacked liberalism a long time ago, many of these women would probably be a lot more clear-minded in their understanding of how boys and girls ought to behave. We got here because the indulgences of our forefathers.

Mike T:
The validity of that as a set of general social observations is certainly up for discussion. The pretensions of quite a few commenters that they can apply that general PowerPoint model to accurately explain the personal motivations of specific total strangers over the Internet is ludicrous, and is what prompted me to post in the first place.

The Feminine Imperative strikes me as another permutation of the female tendency toward solipsism. I believe the FI exists because 1) it matches my own observations; 2) it’s coherent and internally consistent, and 3) I’ve not thought of or discovered a better, alternative explanation. I’m open to correction.

Agreed about over-the-wire-psychoanalysis. I believe C.S. Lewis called it Bulverism.

Beefy, the problem is that the roissysphere stands on the shoulders of giants and claims to feel the soil beneath it’s feet. These nonsense, sloppy terms like solipsism, feminine imperative, team woman, “game” are ideas with no rigor, as imprecise as the dull minds that conjure them up.

Yet all across the roissysphere no single red pill person ever recommends learning the precise terms of the great works of the ages, instead offering a bag of bullsh&t and telling you to read the rantings of a keyboard warrior from DC.

What a hollow existence it is to work oneself into a fey mood inventing tools (which they call game) to climb a mountain only to find the mountain was already home to greater men then they, and could have used tools of higher quality if they had bothered to look.

You can only laugh when a dullard tells you to do something to test “game” because the terminology is so sloppy. It is akin to asking someone to test whether good things are good and bad things are bad. The dullard will simply say whatever worked was good, whatever did not was bad, and call the good part “game”.

Of game one might reasonably say that what is good about it is not original and what is original about it is not good. They call it the “red pill” because ours is a feminist culture and feminism, as I think we can all agree, is not good. Game is largely the rediscovery and codification of what used to be common sense for the wise men of old, or heck, even our grandparents: men are designed to be confident builders and leaders. Men and women like it when the opposite sex lives up to its traditional roles, and they don’t like it when they don’t.

Men turn to the manosphere and guys like Roissy because those are the only places where a lot of these issues are discussed. The churches have really dropped the ball on teaching men how to be men, including, I’m sorry to say, the Catholic Church.

Saying that is the only places those are discussed is a lie. Everyone from feminists to mark Driscoll says confident men who stand up for themselves are attractive. That you do not like the messenger does not negate the message. I suspect you have not bothered to read any catholic social teaching if you legitimately believe teaching a man to embrace his god-given traits and women to embrace their god-given traits only occurs on an irrelevant corner of the blogosphere.

Instead the roissysphere sits around in a [redacted] discussing alpha and beta in some sort of creepy cuckold fetishist way.

The key word is “read.” I am confident that only a tiny fraction of practicing Catholics, let alone all baptized Catholics, spend any time reading about the faith in books or on websites. Most practicing Catholics only learn something about the faith through the Sunday homily. As any Catholic will tell you at great length, most homilies are less than edifying. I agree that both Scripture and Tradition have a lot to say about how men should be men and how women should be women. Good luck finding a non-FSSP priest willing to preach about wifely submission from the pulpit or in pre-Cana meetings. Heck, a lot of priests are gun shy about preaching against divorce, even though Catholics now divorce at about the same rate as the general population.

That is not an argument in favor of the roissysphere. It is again, a sloppy way of saying “educate yourself”. Billions of educated people have needed neither roissy nor game to be considered educated, but the mentality of that piece of Internet is only THEIR sloppy terminology and beliefs (the so called red pill) is the correct one.

You seem to think I’m making an argument in favor of making MRA blogs the new Holy Writ and declaring Roissy our new lord and savior; I’m not. I agree with you (and with what Zippy and others have said elsewhere on this blog) that many of the truths to be found in the manosphere are not new, and that much of what is new is not good for men who are serious about marriage and family. The free and equal liberal superman believes he has nothing to learn from our racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic ancestors. It’s all well and good to say “Read Plutarch, you loser” but it’s enormously jarring for people who have known nothing but decadent liberalism since birth to unlearn everything they’ve learned by osmosis from pop culture and the modern university. Calling it the red pill is rather apt.

I’m not saying they should turn to the manosphere, I’m saying that they are, for many different reasons.

Then, as I return to my initial point, they are learning half truths from idiots who pretend to have original ideas. You state that the roissysphere says certain things people connect with in opposition to “liberals”, so what? Your point was that there isn’t anywhere else to learn those things, Which is a lie. The roissysphere does not have a monopoly on the ideas it steals anymore than a plagiarist owns the quotes he steals.

Why should I do anything but disdain and correct anyone who is too lazy to learn truth? Zippy catholic makes the same point in his post. That you equate this to me saying “read Plutarch loser” is very much in the same vein as the ad hominem zippy catholic discusses in his post.

Mike T:** Though I still think you are too conservative in your handling of the banking crisis. I think we missed the last great opportunity for a national come to Jesus moment we’d have short of a federal gun confiscation initiative.

And you could be right. We can’t replay counterfactuals. But I think things could have gotten a lot worse than many people realize, had the bank run been just permitted to run its course. The apocalypse always makes better fiction than lived reality.

As regards the original post, I have to point out that it comes across as though it concerns the manosphere itself to be ad hominem “writ large.” Particularly in the vagueness of “folks” and “manosphere fellas” there is as clear a sense of cultural marxism/ad hominem (“They’re from the sphere, so clearly they aren’t worth listening to!”) as there is demonstrated otherwise.

Like most any population (ESPECIALLY on the internet) there are bad apples who make the rest of the group look bad. My experience in many open forums has been that, unfortunately, the dumbest, rudest, most ridiculous members come to represent “the other side” most immediately. Thus, a handful of obnoxious sorts who didn’t feel like wasting their time talking Lydia around represented “the manosphere.” IIRC, those “types” generally only made a post or two each. Dalrock, on the other hand, stayed cool and continually tried to keep the discussion on track, as did Chris.

There are immature pockets of the manosphere just as there are immature pockets of the Catholic community, the American community, and pretty much any. But this particular post aims to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and resorts to shaming men of the ‘sphere to behave differently.

Well, much of why the manosphere is often crass and speaks in politically incorrect jargon and so on is that most of the men feel like there is no other safe place left in Western society where they needn’t police themselves against crimethink. Until society re-calibrates and allows for male spaces and uncensored opinions, that will probably continue to be the case.

…is very much in the same vein as the ad hominem zippy catholic discusses in his post.

You’ve spent most of this thread venting your spleen about how terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad game bloggers are, and what lazy pathetic dullards men are to read them. “I give thanks to thee, O Lord, that I am not like other men,” am I right?

At the end of the day, the claims that Dalrock, et.al. make about human nature (game, the Greek alphabet of men, female hypergamy) are either objectively true or objectively false no matter how offensive we might find them. They don’t bat 1000, but then who does? You’ve made it quite clear that you disapprove of men learning what truths they can from game bloggers, but as you put it, so what?

I said the manosphere is the only place where “a lot of these issues” are discussed, and you immediately accused me of not just being wrong, but of willfully lying. You’re coming across as less interested in determining what is true and what is false under the umbrella topic of game, and more about proving you’re the smartest and most virtuous kid in the room. We don’t disagree as much as you think we do.

It is a fair point that the nuttiest members of groups often tend to be perceived as representative by outsiders. But there is something more going on here that is typical of cultural Marxism, including what I termed the “metanarrative” in the post. The manosphere is trying to work out a view of the truth that is counter to what is deemed respectable, because what is deemed respectable has been revealed as inhuman, destructive, and false. That is great, if that is where it stopped. But what happens is that the metanarrative develops, where individual participants in the discussion are thought to be transparent actors in the constructed social narrative. So lots of people now “know” Lydia McGrew’s personal motivations, etc. and “know” that this is driven by “the feminine imperative”. Dalrock did this metanarration himself in my original “rubbernecking” thread, claiming that the interplay between Lydia and I – we’ve known each other for years, and he is a total stranger – was explainable as her AMOGing me or whatever. He still goes on in his recent post about how I need her “permission” to talk about certain things — a notion utterly laughable to anyone who actually knows either of us.

This oddly ties into recent discussions about prescription drugs. Doctors know what the statistics in certain clinical trials say, so many of them prescribe to the statistical model (such as it is) and refuse to believe their lying eyes about the actual person in front of them. Analytical models are great and all, but at some point you have to acknowledge the person in front of you and acknowledge that qua individual
he or she may not be the evo-psych chimp cartoon you’ve drawn in diagram on your PowerPoint slide.

So this kind of brain damage happens where people start to believe their own BS enough that they think they know
people that they don’t, and can analyze personal psychology remotely, etc. What starts as legitimate social generalizations becomes something else entirely.

All that said, I’m likely more manosphere-friendly than some of my commenters. I’ve said before and continue to say that Dalrock is doing interesting, unique, and important work unearthing what is really happening, including his critique of the complicity of many Christians in it, quite independent of what he thinks of me.

Also the whole “feminine imperative” business just reeks of cultural Marxism. What matters is what class a person belongs to (female), and everything she says is just excuse making and tergiversation intended to preserve her power — applied not only as a general social trend, but as if it makes transparent the actions and motivations of the actual women in the threads personally. Read the posts and comment threads at The Woman and the Dragon and The Rational Male.

I have to believe that many of these folks just genuinely don’t know any actual women. One of the most ludicrous memes is the “all women are incapable of love” meme. I can tell ya that one ain’t true, and any guy who has boxed himself into that trap is suffering from the cynicism-as-nihilist-idealism I criticized in my previous post.

I have read Rational Male for quite a while (I debated recommending him, actually, hehe) and recently started reading the Woman and the Dragon. As a woman interested in one day being a couple’s counselor, I have ate up Rollo’s material by the bucket-loads!

As far as the metanarrative goes, I see your point, however, I would humbly point out that Dalrock didn’t start any psychoanalysis until well into the thread. On the contrary, Lydia OPENED with psychoanalysis of Dalrock:
“Someone that callous and cynical, who freely thinks and talks in the terms of “Game,” who pretty obviously thinks that all women are prima facie sluts, has had his chivalry and his capacity for wonder permanently damaged if not destroyed. I wouldn’t want him or his followers in the so-called “Christian manosphere” (shudder) coming within a hundred miles of marrying one of my daughters.”

As Dalrock and others had pointed out, she continually refused to address the subject matter openly, and instead made deflections, insulted Dalrock’s character and your own personal sense, and emotionally charged the conversation by implying you could not even entertain such thoughts without blaming your future daughter-in-law. Her behavior was such that, after several attempts at having a discussion which she patently refused to have, commenters such as Dalrock (I think some others jumped in as well) decided to simply use her as an example. Some of their comments drifted into the more analytical, and some took a bit of liberty with terms (even they admitted “AMOG” was a ridiculous assertion IIRC, and replaced it with “school marm”) but nevertheless, in as much as they might make her argument, she more than made theirs, if one has eyes open to see it.

I have to believe that many of these folks just genuinely don’t know any actual women.

You are doing it yourself. 😛 This is the very same argument to a class of people (in this case, the class of the manosphere, discounting that they could have any knowledge of women with which to base an argument on) that you accuse them of. And to that, Dalrock and Rollo are both happily married. I believe several writers over at The Spearhead are too, though by no means all.

One of the most ludicrous memes is the “all women are incapable of love” meme.

Ahh, I had trouble with this one too, and debated it a bit on Rollo’s blog myself. The problem is that, taken out of context, as a sound bite, it is ridiculous on the face of it. And, again, some of the more immature aspects of the manosphere do seem to take it at face value. But Rollo’s post on the matter, which I imagine is what you are referencing, went on to say a woman can not love a man AS HE WOULD WANT TO BE LOVED. My own assertion was that the genders have their own meanings of love, and their own expectations. Viewed this way, a man equally cannot love a woman as she would wish to be loved.

His words: She’s not incapable of love in the way she defines it, she’s incapable of love as you would have it. She doesn’t lack the capacity for connection and emotional investment, she lacks the capacity for the connection you think would ideally suit you.

My two cents, for what it’s worth, on the love argument:

What confuses me most about this is that what has been described as what a man wants from love sounds to me very much like what women want from love too. I think women also want appreciation and unconditional support.
The problem as I can see it is not that men and women aren’t talking about the same things in terms of their desires, but that they aren’t talking about the same things in terms of “self” – and, to be fair, I recognize that there may also be (our culture currently even encourages) an imbalance in each gender’s ability to give those desired things.
For example, we have heard the cries of the fat and/or sexually unavailable woman – “You don’t love me any more! How come you can’t just love me for me, and not my body?” Much of the comments on this post (and, to a lesser extent, the post itself) strikes me as men looking on the plight of those left by hypergamous women complaining, “You don’t love me anymore! How come you can’t just love me for me, and not my job/social standing/et cetera?”
…..
The point is just that men and women (obviously) value different things in a mate; these are our conditions for love. In and of itself, these are understandable, and in an ideal world, no outside force would impinge our respective abilities to keep the bargain of “I stay thin, you stay employed (or whatever).”

No one responded directly to this comment. I don’t assume that means I am completely right, but I would hazard that at least I wasn’t so wrong that they felt they needed to call me to the carpet on it.

I’ve found the varied discussion in the so-called ‘manosphere’ somewhat interesting. I would agree that there is a tendency towards what you call a cultural marxism, that is framing things in terms of power-relations only and not properly dealing with the truth or not truth of a claim.

Power relations though are a real thing as are metanarratives. When properly applied there can be valuable insights gained.

I am one of those who reads often and comments rather less frequently. I’ve enjoyed sunshinemary’s posts on the feminine imperative tremendously and believe that this issue of feminine imperative (which seemingly has an infinitely elastic definition) is a fine example of a poor use of metanarrative or of power relations.

Everyone from feminists to mark Driscoll says confident men who stand up for themselves are attractive.

They also say a lot of things which completely negate their message. You might as well say everyone says women with large, well-shaped breasts are attractive to (normal) men. By itself, that’s not illuminating in the least. Confidence is only one of the things men need to have in order to be well rounded in attractiveness.

It sounds like you have a problem with the ‘game’ part off the manosphere. I agree it is likely that part is corrupt, lacking data etc.

But what is not debately is a lot of facts that the manosphere blogs brings up regarding female priviliage. You seem like a man who claims he is after the truth, if you are I challenge you to read a lot of these facts from things like males destoryed in court, male deaths in jobs before you write off a entire group writ large.

You are wrong if you think I’ve written off the manosphere. Why would I bother engaging with a group I’ve written off? Life is too short. I don’t talk to feminists, for example, because it is a complete waste of time.

It is no secret that I think much of the ‘critique’ side of the manosphere is true, while much of the prescriptive “game” side is likely at best a placebo. However, with the introduction of concepts like “female solipsism”, “women don’t know how to love”, and now “the feminine imperative”, the critique side is starting to exhibit symptoms of cultural Marxism.

From the comments of some of your readers I gather that my short 2.5 years of blogging experience pales in comparison to your own length of experience. However, even in my much shorter blogging time I quickly noticed that any time I mention another blogger in a post who is at least controversial to my audience that this often has the unintended side effect of hanging them up as a sort of piñata for my commenters to tear apart personally. Ironically this effect is worst when I quote the other blogger not to criticize them but to find some area of limited common agreement. This is to a large degree an unavoidable cost to having the kinds of discussions which I find most valuable, the kinds of conversations with the potential to profit from vigorous intellectual disagreement and synthesize something larger than either side began with. However, as a moderator I can at least be aware of the footing I’ve put the other blogger in by analyzing their ideas in front of a hostile crowd. The absolute worst thing I can do is moderately praise a fellow blogger to whom my audience is hostile to and then prevent the “foreign” blogger from defending himself. Censoring those who vigorously disagree with the blogger would make no sense either, because this prevents the very exchange I hope to profit from. If I do this I’m only hanging the poor outside-of-the-group blogger up as a piñata to be attacked purely for entertainment, since the only potential benefit is now off the table.

Consider your treatment of me in your original rubbernecking post. You hung me up in front of a hostile crowd while expressing limited agreement for my ideas. So far, no foul, and I’m eager for the potential to profit from exactly this type of exchange so I’m happy to pay the price of admission. When I do it to other bloggers I’m aware of the position I’m putting them in, and I think this is tacitly understood amongst all but the least experienced bloggers because they generally handle the situation with a great deal of grace.

But you then tilted the field away from an intellectual exchange by tying the hands of myself and anyone else who wanted to have the exchange. Lydia opened the comments with a long series of slanders against me personally, without even pretending to offer anything of intellectual value. When Chris called her on this early in the thread you made it as clear as possible that you wouldn’t permit anyone to challenge Lydia when she behaved in this way. You rebuked him despite the fact that Chris explained that he works in mental health and regularly counsels men who have failed in their attempts at suicide after being crushed by the system. If you look at the thread you will see that his comment closes with this explanation and the very next words in the thread are your very strong rebuke to Chris for daring to challenge Lydia. She was as you explained a “lady”, who would receive special protection on your blog. Then when another commenter pointed out her refusal to argue with logic, facts, and reason you found your moderator legs yet again and smacked him down publicly for doing this. Yet not once in the 130+ comment exchange did you rebuke Lydia for her repeated slander of me. I have come to expect to have to argue my ideas in front of a hostile crowd on an absurdly tilted playing field, and elected to simply “play through”. But to say that you were an ungracious host would be the epitome of understatement. Adding insult to injury, you have repeatedly lectured me since then on my own failure to keep my commenters in line, frequently alluding to the superior class of commenters on your own blog. This after setting the stage for your commenters to abuse me personally in the most intellectually dishonest ways and actively preventing any and all defense. And all of this merely for sport, since as you yourself explained in your “Dalrock and a Hard Case” post the only possible profit to be gained, a serious exchange of ideas, you allowed Lydia to take off the table.

Yet with all of this I’ve held my tongue and elected to let it slide, because I still hoped to profit from an exchange of ideas. Yet in your “Cynicism” post you now declare that Lydia was right in her marathon slander of me on your blog, and both of your last two posts amount to what you yourself define as the sin of calumny:

I prefer linear comments because they make it easier to follow a thread over time. I also prefer them because they encourage us to directly quote the part of someone else’s post to which we are responding. This has lots of benefits, not least of which is that it makes it a bit harder (though of course not impossible) to pretend someone said something he didn’t say. Bad paraphrase (“Bob said he wants to pitchfork children!”) is one of my pet peeves, though I know I’m not completely immune myself. I consider it a vicious form of calumny when it is done on purpose; so lets never do it on purpose and try hard not to do it on accident.

I can’t say if you are doing this on purpose of course, since that would require me to psychoanalyze you over the wire. All I can do is ask you whether it was on purpose or not, continue to ask you to cease, and remind you of your other words on the topic:

Calumny is when someone tells falsehoods about a person in a way damaging to that person’s reputation or standing in the community. In the case of the Todd Akin affair, many people have told lies about what he actually said…

I’ve personally only seen one single person retract and apologize, and good for him. That’s the kind of guy I want in the moral foxhole with me.

Is Zippy Catholic the kind of man you would like to be in the moral foxhole with?

I’ll also politely ask that you stop referring to me as “brain damaged” as you did immediately above, even while accusing me of ad hominem using a form of argument you yourself define as a vicious form of calumny. If I’ve committed ad hominem, please do me the courtesy of quoting the text and explaining my error. If you can’t do this, please acknowledge that this is the case and cease making the claim.

Oy…..
I have to include that using the term Cultural Marxism is cultural marxism.

Zippy, whether the things are statistically real, verifiable generalities (hypergamy, female solipsism, women cannot love, female imperative) or not (game vs placebo) naming them and rambling about them is process not result. The sausage may never exit the extruder man, but lots of folks are lovin the sausage making.

Do not ignore the catharsis of the process. That was my hook years ago and I have to assume it is for many. A man can channel even the most minor daily (righteous) frustrations into a few choice kilobytes.

Its fair to say it gets tedious. My opinion, of course. I do not think its fair to say its insidious or begging of corrective.

The present dispute is unfortunate. To cut Lydia some slack (I don’t know her writing outside of these exchanges), the first encounter with a “manosphere” blog must have been a shock for her. I know from my own experience that it takes a while to process that stuff if you’re not used to it. Likewise, it would be hard for her to sustain her end of the discussion without exposing herself to more of what she feels is offensive content in Dalrock’s comment threads–which is to be expected from a woman of her stamp and generation and background. She over-reacted at first, but otherwise I’m inclined to make charitable assumptions. More could be said, but instead I’ll just note that good points have since been made on both sides, and it’s a pity that what could have been an important conversation got so personal and confrontational. Some other commenters, including at Dalrock’s, have said as much.

I think that acquaintance with the manosphere is essential for Christian blogdom (though individual Christians should not subject themselves if they have a delicate temperament), at least to the point of recognizing some of the core issues. Catholic “manhood” speakers and writers, who I generally respect quite a lot, simply do not address them. So, inexperienced and trusting young men (the “nice guys” who want to do right) are not being told about the true nature of things out there, and are at extreme risk of having their lives made very miserable, or quite possibly destroyed, particularly with the current marriage laws. A guy has nowhere else to go but the manosphere to get a lot of the straight dope regarding male-female relationships and power dynamics, and especially regarding the extreme and unequal risks in present day marriage, including with religious girls. Perhaps Christian bloggers who object to the tone of manosphere blogs could do this better, but my main point would be that they are not doing it at all. (This is something Zippy was trying to articulate at the very beginning, so I’m disappointed that Dalrock did not go with the positive there and scoop up some potential allies, instead of focussing on the Lydia thing.)

Dalrock:But you then tilted the field away from an intellectual exchange by tying the hands of myself and anyone else who wanted to have the exchange. Lydia opened the comments with a long series of slanders against me personally, without even pretending to offer anything of intellectual value. When Chris called her on this early in the thread you made it as clear as possible that you wouldn’t permit anyone to challenge Lydia when she behaved in this way.

That is a fair criticism, although I think my own intentions were probably misread in that thread. I had done enough lurking in your comboxes and elsewhere in the manosphere to know that, for example, comments like this one (reader warning: explicit content) are pervasive. I don’t permit that sort of thing here. My warnings were intended to project my insistence on civility to any newbies coming across from the discussion, not to stifle substantive criticism.

Furthermore, you are probably right that I did not do as well as I should have, as host, for a new commenter. I did criticize the substance of Lydia’s comments, but I did not call her out on the personal attacks, and I should have. I’ve known her for many years and it is natural for me to be biased, which should have raised warning flags in myself. So I apologize for not being a better host in that thread. “Better host” means the kind of host I strive to be, understanding that newbie commenters in your threads get treated rather worse than you were treated here. That’s fine: you run your house the way you choose, and I run mine the way I choose, and to the extent I failed here it was in not living up to my own standards.

On the issue of paraphrase and calumny, I think you’ve misunderstood my position. Expressing and critiquing ideas in general terms is perfectly fair game, though naturally it runs the risk of committing the straw man fallacy in the sense that one might criticize ideas that nobody holds. It would be impossible to write about anything if everything had to be preceded by specific quotations.

Paraphrase is when someone ascribes something to a specific named person: say, for example, when Lydia ascribed to you the notion that you “pretty obviously [think] that all women are prima facie sluts”. I’m quite certain you don’t think that, actually, and it would have been harder for her to maintain that assertion if she were required to quote you to support it. I should have insisted that she do so.

My two most recent posts, however are – genuinely – not about you specifically. They are about ideas.

The first one is about an idea that lies beneath Lydia’s response in that thread. This does not constitute a blanket defense of her specific conduct: but she is correct that at least some of the men in the manosphere are steeped in an unhealthy, unreal cynicism.

The second post is about the fact that a significant component of – not all of, but a significant component of – manosphere discourse comes from a cultural Marxism frame. The “Feminine imperative” discussion that unfolded at The Woman and the Dragon and The Rational Male illustrates this perfectly: the discussion is all about power relations and who jockeys for power and how based on their presumed preferred strategies and outcomes, and the actions of individuals even in the threads themselves are read through the template of this power-jockeying.

Both posts are to some extent about the fallacy of psychologizing by wire. It is true that Lydia did some of that to you in the Rubbernecking thread. And it is true that quite a few manosphere commenters think they can remotely psychologize her under the rubric of “the feminine imperative”.

I’ll also politely ask that you stop referring to me as “brain damaged” as you did immediately above, even while accusing me of ad hominem using a form of argument you yourself define as a vicious form of calumny. If I’ve committed ad hominem, please do me the courtesy of quoting the text and explaining my error. If you can’t do this, please acknowledge that this is the case and cease making the claim.

I didn’t refer to you as brain damaged.

I think that “The Feminine Imperative”, “Female Solipsism”, and “Women Can’t Love” are brain damaged ideas when taken as something that can be applied to particular total strangers in comboxes in acts of remote psychologizing. I don’t get to choose who believes in their utility for that purpose.

empathologism:I have to include that using the term Cultural Marxism is cultural marxism.

How so? If, objectively, the discourse is mainly about power relations and who is screwing who, that is what it objectively is about. If facts are filtered through that template to an extent that the template becomes more important than the truth, it is true that the discussion has that character.

Dalrock:Here is where, in a thread with total strangers to you who know each other very well, you claimed .. well, I’ll let you speak for yourself:

Her appeal to chivalry in the thread is especially interesting, because she invokes this from a position of authority over you. The entire exchange has had a subtext of Lydia telling you and everyone else what thoughts are permitted here, what discussion can occur, etc. She is the AMOG, and she makes this clear whenever anyone steps out of line.

That is, not to put too fine a point on it, a load of crap. Stepping into a conversation with total strangers (to you), who have themselves known each other personally for years, and pretending to apply the “Game” template to interactions you can’t hope to understand, is in my view a sign that you should think about taking a step back and reevaluating the limitations of the Game template. Sure, it has utility sometimes. But what are its inherent limits?

Are Mano-bloggers really employing dialectical materialism? Is history really the product of the struggle between the sexes? I think it is a little funny, in trying to smear the Androsphere pseudo-intellectual Zippy may have actually highlighted the opposite.

Stepping into a conversation with total strangers (to you), who have themselves known each other personally for years, and pretending to apply the “Game” template to interactions you can’t hope to understand, is in my view a sign that you should think about taking a step back and reevaluating the limitations of the Game template.

“Stepping into a market filled with total strangers (to you), who have themselves done business with one another for years, and pretending to apply the “market” template to interactions you can’t hope to understand, is in my view a sign that you should think about taking a step back and reevaluating the limitations of the Economics template.”

The value of any model lies in its predictive power, not in whether you approve of it or not.

Markets are both a bad analogy and a good analogy. I’ll take each in turn.

Markets are a bad analogy because precisely what is at issue is attempts to apply statistical science to make concrete judgments about individuals. Stereotypes are useful information in the absence of any other information, but they are very limited information. While it is true that black people commit more violent crime and are therefore incarcerated at much greater rates than white people, it is a fallacy to conclude that a particular just-met individual must have spent time in jail because he is black, and maybe you have some other superficial signs that he might have criminal tendencies.

Markets are a good analogy because in the markets there are two different kinds of investors. So-called ‘technical’ investors build models based on statistical correlations and such in the markets and make particular individual investment decisions based on those correspondence models. So-called ‘fundamental’ investors attempt to understand the truth about particular businesses and invest (either money, time, or both) accordingly. The number of self-made billionaires in the first category is zero. The number in the second is all of them.

How so? If, objectively, the discourse is mainly about power relations and who is screwing who, that is what it objectively is about. If facts are filtered through that template to an extent that the template becomes more important than the truth, it is true that the discussion has that character.

While it is true that black people commit more violent crime and are therefore incarcerated at much greater rates than white people, it is a fallacy to conclude that a particular just-met individual must have spent time in jail because he is black, and maybe you have some other superficial signs that he might have criminal tendencies.

Zippy, this is not being done. You are, well, reading too much into the remarks people make when they address , for example, a woman like Lydia, or they talk about such a person. The assignment of theory to her/their reasoning and motive is exploratory, not expository. Its not exactly right to say you are taking things too literally but its something like that, in that vein. To make a remark that is a statistically valid generality about a population is not necessarily to foist that on the individual, even if done in argument. I’m a little bit surprised that that seems to be a principle portion of your beef.

Your claim that markets are a bad analogy (in whole or in part) doesn’t make it so. I’ll repeat my thesis, which you seem to have overlooked:

“The value of any model lies in its predictive power, not in whether you approve of it or not.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter if a given model is “right” or “wrong”, all that matters is whether or not it enables you to make better-than-the-best-competing-alternative predictions about the world.

Economic theory is all about building models on top of generalized models of human behavior. And it works pretty well. Thus disproving your premise that you can’t analyze interpersonal dynamics w/o getting into the details of each and every special little snowflake involved. (If you don’t like that paraphrase, state clearly and concisely what your position is.)

Your “is a particular black person an ex-con” example is very silly, and one must suspect a deliberately bad-faith example of the applicability of models of human behavior to individuals. To address just one level of its silliness: Even though a higher percentage of the black population than the white has been incarcerated, most blacks are still not ex-cons. Therefore, the differential in rates of incarceration is not the relevant factor to consider, it’s the actual rate for black people.

You’re also playing games by using the word “conclude”, when “presume” is a more appropriate word. To use the word “conclude” is to set up a straw-man, since all you need do is demonstrate that conclusions drawn from less than complete information are not 100% reliable to “prove” that generalizations shouldn’t be applied to people. (Which I guess is your point.)

Your technical analysis/fundamental analysis metaphor is tautological at best. You posit an unhelpful form of analysis (technical — incidentally, I agree that this is a bad investment model), and more-or-less imply/assert that other analysis that you don’t like is analogous to it. You offer no support for this implication/assertion other than your own say-so.

Finally, your assertion that all self-made billionaires have been practicing fundamental investment can only be supported by your ludicrous expansion of the term “investment” to include all allocation of resources, including labor. This is peripheral to the main discussion, but it’s a measure of your willingness to play games with words, and says nothing good about you.

(I’m giving you a huge pass by allowing you to carve out “bad” technical analysis from all the other quant stuff that could fall under “models based on statistical correlations”, which is not as obviously valueless, and by not making a fuss over all the investors who’ve gone broke stock-picking based on “fundamental” analysis that they balled up.)

Zippy, no, it would not be passive aggressive. Frankly that term is worn out…..really. In the context of the interchange between Lydia and others, who cares? Passive aggressive machinations, I guess, matter greatly in repeated contact long term dialog or in relationships, but calling it out in anonymous blog interactions is a bit pop psych overdone, as much as the things you are bringing to the fore can become overdone. Maybe you don’t see that because you are in it?
Do not take that as an indictment of the terms use generally. If the shoe fits….all that…..similarly if those other shoes fit….realizing that the intention of the person allegedly being passive aggressive is as relevant as the intention of the person assigning female imperative to a stranger.

You assume as much as they when you do so. Again, my opinion, but I think its great you raised the issue about those things and how they take a life of their own, inviting every manner of intellectualism, faux and real, random jargon generated and eloquently and originally elucidated.

I also agree that the coarseness of some can shadow the good words of the whole. Its wheat and chaff though and we can moderate with our scroll bar, or, find some diamonds in that rough on occasion.

Finally, I tend to agree with you on game and I am always glad to see the seeming religiosity of it challenged, not because its fun to hash mark the participants keeping a sort of score, but because it brings out thoughtful (and some ridiculous) responses.

“The value of any model lies in its predictive power, not in whether you approve of it or not.”

I overlooked it, and made the attempt to address the substance of your comment, because I didn’t see the need to point out how idiotic a question-begging false dichotomy it is.

I don’t think that economics is particularly successful as a science, I think its failures as a science are manifest, and by invoking it it seems to me that you are changing the subject from markets and investment.

The technical/fundamental dichotomy is well known and is part of everyday discussion with investment professionals. I included labor merely because an entrepreneur is also a kind of “fundamental” investor, investing his personal time and effort in a concrete business he understands in addition to money. You are welcome to see the move as tendentious if you so choose. You can also simply exclude entrepreneurs and get the same result: self-made billionaires from technical investment is zero, self-made billionaires from fundamental investment is all of them.

Really? I was unaware that feminism insisted upon a role for women that is subordinate to men. Real chivalry insists that women let men lead at home and in public life. What many socons practice isn’t chivalry.

I don’t think that economics is particularly successful as a science …

Its track record, particularly in the micro realm, is pretty impressive. Your opinion says more about you than it.

… by invoking it it seems to me that you are changing the subject from markets and investment.

You’re the one who conflated markets in the general sense with stock markets in particular. My apologies if the term confused you. You probably don’t know much about economics.

The technical/fundamental dichotomy is well known and is part of everyday discussion with investment professionals.

And this throat-clearing means what exactly?

Even giving you every possible benefit of the doubt, your “fundamentals” analogy doesn’t prove what you think it does. Fundamental analysis rests heavily upon generalizations about human behavior. Or do you imagine that revenue projections (for example) are based upon a deep understanding of every potential customer in the addressable market?

Generalizations about people work. If you don’t like a particular model, demonstrate that it lacks predictive power. (Bonus points: propose a better one!) Otherwise you’re just huffing and puffing, making yourself look a fool.

Surely it isn’t “marxist” to suggest that in many social interactions, relative power dynamics play a significant to substantial role in what takes place. This is true in the workplace, in the academy, and so on, and it’s also true in relations between men and women. Of course suggesting it is the *only* thing going on is *reductionist* — and actual Marxism was reductionist as well — but applying an idea in a reductive way does not mean that the basic idea is unsound, or that it is “marxist”. Power machinations are a very real and substantial component of human interaction, including in the interactions between men and women in the sexual/romantic arena and otherwise.

It is absolutely Marxist, I’m sorry the Roissysphere is too intellectually empty to learn about Critical Theory, but that is only one of your seemingly bottomless failings. Your scare-quotes don’t change that.

The technical/fundamental dichotomy is well known and is part of everyday discussion with investment professionals.

And this throat-clearing means what exactly?
——————————————————-
This is an apt question, even if sarcastically put. To my knowledge any dichotomy that may or may not exist is transitory based on the particulars, there is not one innate. Reliance on one more than the other is a reasonable debate to have but there is no present dichotomy.

Not in the finance industry, but i was a trader, energy related stuff a-la Enron where stochastic analysis was heavily relied upon, Elliot Wave was big then, in the 90’s.

You are quite right that I don’t know much about economics. I’m not particularly convinced that anyone does.

That could be from lack of trying, I suppose. I’ve read (or attempted to read) Keynesians, Austrians, Chicagoans, and the Modern Monetary Theory types. Marx too, for that matter. Mostly I run into contradictions or premises that can’t be cashed out and lose interest.

I think my assessment plays out correctly in the real world, where economists have demonstrated the capacity to be approximately as accurate as the weather man.

And of course people are well within their rights to reflect my judgments about things back onto their judgments about me.

I do know a thing or two about starting and running businesses, investing, etc.

Sorry I misinterpreted your original analogy though. It never occurred to me that someone would try to favorably compare the predictive power of economics to the predictive power of Game.

Everyone from feminists to mark Driscoll says confident men who stand up for themselves are attractive.

Fine, but neither socons nor feminists actually give an explanation of how one arrives at confidence. I rarely read Roissy, and I find the most of the manosphere tedious and almost unreadable. That said, Roissy, et al, are at least attempting to provide a practical means at achieving confidence

Anyone who preaches confidence without teaching how to achieve confidence is engaging in magical thinking and is being intellectually dishonest. Confidence is the endpoint of journey, not its beginning.

If you want to see the biggest concentration of men who “stand up for themselves” then I suggest you go to the southside of Chicago. Young black men shoot each other everyday standing up for themselves in the meatgrinder that is ghetto culture. So, until you offer a vision of standing up for yourself that rises above pure instinctual, animal aggression telling men to stand up for themselves is likely to produce negative results, if any at all.

Also the whole “feminine imperative” business just reeks of cultural Marxism. What matters is what class a person belongs to

Cultural Marxism isn’t just class analysis. Cultural Marxists divide the world into oppressed and oppressor classes; these are logical a priori categories, not empirical ones.

Consider the following claim: Lawyers have a tendency to defend the privilege of legal professionals to interpret the law, an of non-professionals to just accept those interpretations. This is class analysis and a perfectly reasonable one. Unlike the Cultural Marxist a priori classes, oppressor/oppressed, lawyers are a synthetic category derived from observation.

i can respect all codes of honorz, and i have pre-redacted this post for you.🙂

like ishmael said in the above MOBY [REDACTED] GREATBOOK, “better to sleep with a sober pagan dan a drunken christzianz”

zlzoozozz

““I stood looking at him for a moment. For all his tattooing he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal. What’s all this I have been making about, thought to myself – the man’s a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian ” –MOBY [REDACTED] lzozolozlzoz

You are quite right that I don’t know much about economics. I’m not particularly convinced that anyone does.

That could be from lack of trying, I suppose. I’ve read (or attempted to read) Keynesians, Austrians, Chicagoans, and the Modern Monetary Theory types. Marx too, for that matter. Mostly I run into contradictions or premises that can’t be cashed out and lose interest.

…

I do know a thing or two about starting and running businesses, investing, etc.

I’ve noticed that you don’t so much construct arguments as make naked assertions backed up by snark and paper-thin appeals to (your own) authority.

I think my assessment plays out correctly in the real world, where economists have demonstrated the capacity to be approximately as accurate as the weather man.

I like how you (a.) fall back on the most hackneyed of cliches (“the weatherman is always wrong, ha-ha-ha”) and (b.) have completely failed to appreciate the previously cited distinction between micro and macro economics. I believe you when you say that you don’t know much about economics. I don’t believe you’ve ever made a serious attempt to understand the discipline.

And of course people are well within their rights to reflect my judgments about things back onto their judgments about me.

You know, a long time ago, men were a big moviegoing audience. I remember when the big annual vampire movie was called Blade, in which Wesley Snipes was a righteous loner who killed vampires, who were understood to be objectively evil. Also I can recall Van Helsing had an unusually great example of the Count as the evil alpha polygamist versus Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckingsdale as the monogamous heroes.

Then Twilight came out (though the Underworld series set the stage) and we were made to understand that vampires and werewolves were just super-sexy sigmas and might even be alphas in their parallel vampire and werewolf societies, and that anyone (not to mention our heroine) who could master the power relations among them would rise to the top.

‘Mastery of power relations’ is a female interest first and foremost. Feminists are merely those who took that mastery to its logical conclusion. Had you pitched ‘Twilight’ to an all-male audience, you’d be laughed out of the room. Once it starts to make multiple billions of dollars, people stop laughing.

Those who wish to master the feminine will necessarily discuss, implement, and master such CULTURAL MARXIST!!! power relations instead of how to be objectively better craftsmen or objectively righteous leaders or objectively efficient managers, because there’s absolutely no direct reward from women for such mastery, only the money (power if you like) derived from it at best.

Now go watch Twilight and tell me three things about women’s desires that you learned from it. Extra credit if they’re things that women would never admit to openly!

From where I sit St. Paul’s admonition that “woman was made for man, not man for woman” looks like class analysis to me. From what little I’ve read from Lydia it looks possible to have a reasoned conversation with her. That said, it’s probably unlikely, if not impossible, to get positive results out of having a woman coming onto blog mainly populated by men and telling them what’s what, even if her analysis is largely correct.

It seems to me that you have been purposefully obscure. It would have been better if (upon reading Dalrock’s post) you had said straight out that you weren’t talking about him and his commenters, but only the commenters themselves.

Recall that the calumny/Todd Akin post was shortly after lengthy comment exchanges with JohnMcG, and you made a similar objection then: You weren’t talking “about him”.

“I’m not trying to call you out you [JohnMcG] personally, but you did make your particular comments on my blog. Yet I’m really not trying to pick on you: it was your own comments and where you made them that makes it seem like I’m focused on you. But I’m not. I cited others who made comments elsewhere as well, and they are only a small sampling of what I’ve run into over the past several months since the Akinfest started.”*

Come now, ZC. Of course it would appear to John that you were picking on him. Of course if would appear to others as a focus on John. It should have appeared as such to you, as well. Instead you feigned surprise at his umbrage; blaming him for preemptively writing comments in response to your blog with which you would later have an argument…that just happened to follow on the heels of a previous argument with him, and–by happenstance–on the same subject. It struck me as disingenuous. It would have been better to preface it: “JohnMcG, This is for you.”, or not address the subject at all. As it happened: you gave the appearance that you didn’t consider JohnMcG at all. Only a robot would accept that explanation.

Combine that history of argument with your dry humor and a drier sarcasm, it is reasonable for a reader–or Dalrock–to assume that your reticence to be clear is born of a contrived bemusement, and dismissiveness. I did not and do not believe you were writing about Dalrock in the previous posts, but upon discovering that he did, the good thing for you to do would have been to be clear. Instead you let it fester. Sometimes it is your fault if someone else misunderstands you.

You are very careful to write what is right, but sometimes with less care if it is good.

Critical Theory is a powerful tool to deconstruct the new gods the faithless people construct to fill their spiritual and existential void. Game being one of them, atheism another, it all comes from the same sick source. Modernism is my true enemy.

@Cane CaldoIt seems to me that you have been purposefully obscure. It would have been better if (upon reading Dalrock’s post) you had said straight out that you weren’t talking about him and his commenters, but only the commenters themselves.

He isn’t saying the posts weren’t about me. He is saying the posts weren’t all about me. Your confusion is understandable though given how slippery Zippy continues to be on the question.

If you put an agree/disagree button on the bottom of each post on this blog and Dalrock’s blog, I suspect the agree rating for Zippy’s post would be about 50% whereas Dalrock’s would be in the high 90’s.

What I mean to illustrate by this is what they are doing with their blogs. Zippy tends to explore some of the wilderness of his thinking and throw them out for discussion. What I see Dalrock doing is providing fuel or food to his reader’s anger.

I’m not sure one is better than the other — the technology is here; we will use it in different ways. But I think it reveals a fundamental difference of the dynamic in the comments when zippy cites someone versus when Dalrock does.

I strongly disagreed (and continue to disagree) with Zippy’s accusations of calumny against me. But I never got the sense that he was siccing his readers on me, or that the comment threads in those posts would mainly consist of jokes at my expense. This isn’t just because Zippy didn’t call me out by name.

When zippy cited Darlock, there was some discussion of the manosphere, not all of it complimentary. Some of it was probably based on stereotypes gleaned from limited information. (e.g. I was familial enough with Roissy to know that it wasn’t for me)

But what there was not was jokes along the lines that Dalrock must be some overgrown pimpled teenager in his Mom’s basement who couldn’t get a date for the prom. I do think we at least pretend to entertain ideas before dismissing them, rather than trying to fit people and posts into a template that we can dismiss.

John:
I’m not going to claim that my process is optimal, nor even that I am perfectly consistent in its application. But I do try to foster discussion of subject matter rather than mudslinging between personalities. And I expect that a solid majority of the comments in the archive are people disagreeing with me about something, with a much thinner minority expressing agreement.

As you say, that doesn’t make my approach better than other peoples’ approaches. But it fosters the kind of discussion I like to have.

In retrospect I really should have just chosen examples for my last Akin post from elsewhere, and left the ones that had actually happened here alone in the archive. To some that might have seemed like avoiding the elephant in the room or whatever, and others might have thought I was being passive aggressive and refusing to meet the enemy in a cage match like a Real Man [tm]; but it would have kept the focus on the subject matter rather than individuals.

Actually, I meant my point to be complimentary — even though my writings were the target of those posts, I did not see them as putting a “kick me ” sign on my back for your other readers, as what is the effect (if not the intent) when Dalrock cites a disagreement with another reader.

Thanks John, I understand that and appreciate it. But combined with Cane’s criticism I do see the possibility for improvement in the process: retrospectively I could have exclusively used outside examples as a more effective way of furthering my own goal of focus on the subject matter, avoiding as much as possible making it about you.

@JohnmcgWhen zippy cited Darlock, there was some discussion of the manosphere, not all of it complimentary. Some of it was probably based on stereotypes gleaned from limited information. (e.g. I was familial enough with Roissy to know that it wasn’t for me)

But what there was not was jokes along the lines that Dalrock must be some overgrown pimpled teenager in his Mom’s basement who couldn’t get a date for the prom. I do think we at least pretend to entertain ideas before dismissing them, rather than trying to fit people and posts into a template that we can dismiss.

Did Zippy cite me in a post prior to Rubbernecking? Because as you can easily verify the first comment out of the gate on that post were from Lydia:

If the blogger linked is supposed to be an example of someone who appears to care deeply about marriage and the family, you can keep him. I don’t care if he’s a Christian. I don’t care that he knows feminism is false or that lots of Christians are, unfortunately, feminists. (Whoop-de-doo.) Someone that callous and cynical, who freely thinks and talks in the terms of “Game,” who pretty obviously thinks that all women are prima facie sluts, has had his chivalry and his capacity for wonder permanently damaged if not destroyed.

So, technically you are accurate. I was framed as a different sort of loser, a “damaged” “intenet tough guy” who couldn’t possibly love his wife and was so toxic my ideas must not be discussed. And Lydia never stopped. This is what prompted Zippy to ultimately write:

So that’s it, eh? We aren’t going to actually, you know, engage the subject matter?

He even followed up with a post complaining that he wasn’t allowed to have the discussion on his own blog. So no, one hasn’t tasted irony until one reads “I do think we at least pretend to entertain ideas before dismissing them” in reference to when Zippy first referenced me on his site, unless there is an earlier post and discussion of which I’m entirely unaware. Likewise, Zippy has explained that he jumped all over Chris’ perfectly reasonable first comment because:

At the time Chris was (from my POV) some random commenter who had come over from the manosphere, which was brand spanking new to me after a little bit of lurking, mostly here, and as far as I could tell was filled with a cesspool of commenters who are incapable of being civil and who litter the landscape with profanity, porn, and other jackassery.

So the second part of your statement (“rather than trying to fit people and posts into a template that we can dismiss”) is equally absurd. You can pretend whatever you want, but anyone who cares to check can easily see that I’m right.

Moreover, Zippy keeps claiming that the quotes my recent post proved Lydia right about weren’t statements she originally made regarding me. What I would ask those who are interested is to read the comments from the beginning, and point out where her general focus switched from “you can keep him” (dalrock) to someone or something else. I simply can’t find a clear shift in her subject of focus.

Like them or not (like me or not), the manosphere holds up a mirror to the Church and shows the Church what an enormous disservice it has done to its men and boys.

The manosphere has never laid claim to having or being The Truth or all of the truth, nor even having discovered truth. Rather it has simply noticed the old immutable facts about human nature and put them out there.

Only a few sites in the manosphere advocate pickup. Dalrock for his part disdains the PUA lifestyle and points out that PUAs aren’t suitable marriage partners.

Istrice, you point out that everyone from feminists to Mark Driscoll tells men that confident men are attractive. Assuming this to be true, what is the RCC doing to disseminate that view and catechize its young men in it? I can tell you that the prots are doing exactly NOTHING to teach their young men that confidence and dominance are attractive, much less how to be those things.

When the church starts talking about these things in a real sense and not excommunicating those who teach it (see the case of Joseph of Jackson discussed over at Sunshine Mary’s place), then I think Zippy and his fellow Christosphere bloggers and commenters can claim the moral high ground.

Do you agree there is such a thing as a “feminine imperative”? I believe there is, and it consists of hardwired biological drives to mate and secure resources, coupled with the social structures that serve those interests.

Does the feminine imperative explain EVERY situation? No.

Does it help explain female behaviors, motivations and conduct which might previously be unexplainable to the male mind, but now make sense once he learns of the fundamental differences between his mind and body and that of the woman he deals with? You bet.

Do you agree that there is such a thing as feminine solipsism (I.e. the tendency of a woman to view every issue, problem or fact through the prism of her own experience and “make it all about her”)? (And no, Dalrock is not making this “all about him”. He’s simply pointed out that if you’re going to criticize him or his views, then do so directly and point out the specific areas of disagreement so a discussion of them can be had on the merits.

To me this comes down to whether there exist general truths and facts about female behavior, conduct and motivations. I believe there are such general truths and facts, and that generally applicable conclusions can be drawn about women and their natures, and that behaviors can be explained and understood, if not predicted. I believe they can be discovered through research, observation and anecdotal evidence. I believe the facts identified in the manosphere are based on the hard wiring God gave us.

It always puzzles me that people think they can read my emotions over the wire too. I wonder what paleolithic evolutionary advantage there was to having an overly optimistic assessment of one’s mind reading abilities; because it is clearly a pervasive human trait.

I really do intend to let this go and the only reason I haven’t done as you have and put up a new post is lack of time. I promise to do so as soon as I have time. There isn’t much left to salvage, since I presume it is mutual that we are past the point where we might have a beer (or a scotch) and put all of this past us.

But before we pronounce this horse we are beating dead and move on with our respective blogs I do want to understand your position. On my site you have acknowledged several times that you were referring to me and others (my commenters I presume) when you said Lydia was proven right. Just above you also stated Lydia was referring to me in the comments you quoted, the ones you said I ultimately proved right. Moreover, the comments you selected were in the context of how Dalrock and those poisoned by him are “damaged”, can’t possibly love their wives, etc. With this in mind, are you still claiming that you weren’t suggesting Look, Dalrock just proved Lydia right! when she made those outrageous charges against me?

I don’t know. I agree with SSM that the definitions of the thing are all over the place and mutually contradictory. Maybe once what people mean by the label stabilizes a bit it will be possible to better evaluate the question.

If it just means that there is a female nature that is different from the male nature, and that women naturally have interests different from but overlapping with men’s interests, sure. If it means that a blog conversation involving people you don’t know from Adam is explicable in terms of the woman/women mindlessly following a biologically driven “feminine imperative” disconnected from reason, and she can’t possibly be motivated in opposing manosphere concepts or participation by a legitimate selfless concern for others, then no. That latter is a pile of tommyrot.

There is a difference between Lydia being right in an over-the-wire psychological assessment of you personally, on the one hand, with which I obviously wouldn’t agree given my disdain for such things; and her having legitimate selfless concerns about manosphere immersion affecting men negatively, on the other.

I am not trying to claim the moral high ground. I am trying to discuss specific ideas, giving my view on them and soliciting the views of others.

Fair enough, but I would point out that most of your anti-Dalrock commenters are clearly claiming the moral high ground.

Don’t you think it a little odd that your blog tends to attract social conservative types whose stock in trade is claiming the moral high ground? The fact is that your posts generally are not written in the language of taking the moral high ground. Despite that, most of your agreeing commenters seem to respond to you with language indicating that your positions are the moral high ground. An obvious explanation for this discrepancy is that your chosen voice is nothing more than a rhetorical strategy.

Asher:Don’t you think it a little odd that your blog tends to attract social conservative types whose stock in trade is claiming the moral high ground?

It may be a function of the fact that over the years I’ve often blogged on moral theology from the perspective that moral facts are knowable, objective facts.

An obvious explanation for this discrepancy is that your chosen voice is nothing more than a rhetorical strategy.

I’m often accused of blogging just to make myself feel morally superior to others, so you aren’t the only person to make that assumption. When people bring that up I usually suggest that we change focus to what is true; because whether I blog for narcissistic self congratulatory reasons or not is irrelevant to the truth status of the content we are discussing.

I emphatically reject this. No, both you and Lydia really believe what you believe. Lydia only uses moral high ground rhetoric because she thinks the situation desperate. That said, moral high ground rhetoric is counterproductive and will not get Lydia what she wants.

I’m often accused of blogging just to make myself feel morally superior to others, so you aren’t the only person to make that assumption.

Having spent the first 22 years of my life in a strict evangelical environment I can assure you that such people really believe what they are saying. It is not just a fig leaf that they use to make themselves feel superior.

The problem for social conservatives is that they are engaging in something that has no foundation in scripture, which is to impose God’s Law on an alien people who flatly reject His Law. There is simply no sanction in scripture for that.

@ZippyDalrock:
I presume it is mutual that we are past the point where we might have a beer (or a scotch) and put all of this past us.

Not from my POV. I’d buy you a beer tomorrow.

I’ve given this a bit of thought and while we clearly don’t (and won’t) see eye to eye on this issue I’ve given it awful hard to you personally and you are responding here with a great deal of grace. You even offered again after I continued. That can’t have been easy and in my book is a very manly gesture.

If you are still so inclined, I propose we agree to disagree on this issue, raise a virtual glass, and look forward to what we might learn from one another in the new year.

My prayers are for the best for you and yours in 2013, and that God will bless you.

[…] a view of men and women in a zero-sum power struggle with women as oppressors and men as victims: cultural marxism with women (currently) in the role of oppressor and men in the role of oppressed, locked in a […]

{LOGIC is the heartbeat of all true learning – the soul of the Classics, the Sciences and Religion. Once everyone studied the Classics, to know that in logic there is a difference between true and false; the Sciences, to discern where it lies; and Religion, to appreciate why it matters. Today, few study all three empires of the mind. Fewer study the ordered beauty of the logic at their heart.} quoted from Monckton of Brenchley at the start of a post at WUWT.